School

School reports are a very interesting source for genealogy in terms of the education. Not only can we learn the daily attendance record of our ancestors, how many excused and unexcused days they missed, but also grades they received in individual subjects. Reports are usually in the form of books, one book covers the school year and list all students. Schulkodex from 1805 specified marking on trivial schools as:

The school attendence could be classified as Very diligent (velmi pilná/sehr fleißig), Diligent (pilná/fleißig) or Rare (řídká/dünn).

Behavior could be Very good (velmi dobré/sehr gut), Good (dobré/gut), Middle (prostřední/mittel) or Inadequate (nepřiměřené/unangemessen).

Subjects could be evaluated as Very good (velmi dobrý/sehr gut), Good (dobrý/gut), Middle (prostřední/mittel or Weak (slabý/schwach)

Since late-1800s grades in Czech school have been marked from 1 (the best) to 5 (the worst):

Grades

1

2

3

4

5

Czech word equivalent

velmi dobrý

dobrý

dostatečný

sotva dostatečný

nedostatečný

German word equivalent

vorzüglich

lobenswert

befriedigent

genügend

ungenügend

English word equivalent according to character of the evaluation:

Behavior

very moral

moral

not properly moral

undeserving

unlawful

Diligence

very diligent

diligent

not diligent enough

inconstant

negligible

Studying

very good

good

sufficient

barely sufficient

insufficient

Penmanship

very neat

neat

not neat enough

messy

negligent

During World War II when the Czech system was unified with German, we had 6 grades.

Samples

Faq

Online

School report 1857 (District archive in Hodonín, German language)

1857 report from the trivial school in village of Čejkovice in Southern Moravia. The left half of the sheet records the house number, name of the father (or guardian), names of the children, and their birthdates. The right half of the sheet shows their grades in various subjects. The 29th student listed on this example is Tomas Masarik (Masaryk) who was the president of the First Czechoslovak Republic.

School report 1892 (District archive in České Budějovice, German language)

School report with the classification of Ludwig Müller, 3rd year student of the teacher's academy in České Budějovice (Czech Budweis). Interesting is the notice informing about his moral offence caused by frequent visits to the pub. Czech Budweiser must have already been an excellent beer at that time. Probably this is one of the reasons why Ludwig had to repeat the grade.